Extremely Rare Half-Gallon Stoneware Jar with Cobalt Floral Decoration, Stamped "B.C. MILBURN / ALEXANDRIA, D.C.," circa 1840, squat-shaped, semi-ovoid jar with tooled shoulder, flared collar, and applied tab handles, decorated on the front with a stem bearing elongated flower blossoms and graduated leaves. Reverse decorated with a different design depicting two conjoined flowers with closed buds. The jar's front is stamped with the maker's mark, "B.C. MILBURN, / ALEXANDRIA, D.C.," above a half-gallon capacity mark. This stamp is Milburn's earliest maker's mark and among the rarest known from the entire Alexandria and District of Columbia region. To date, we have offered only one other piece bearing this mark, which, like the much-more-common H.C. Smith stamp, includes "D.C.," indicating it was employed prior to Alexandria's retrocession to the state of Virginia. Coupled with the jar's extreme rarity is an appealing small size with good decoration and color. A number of fairly innocuous flaws as follows: Heavy chipping to base. A thin T-shaped crack on underside, extending to base area, which emanates from a 1 1/4" in-the-firing surface fissure and presumably occurred in the firing. Chipping to one end of each handle. A few rim chips and some faint crazing to rim area. A shallow 3/4" in-the-firing surface flake (contact mark) to reverse. H 7".
